I am going to be reading "How To Design Programs" and I thought others might like to read and discuss it so I set up a book club via the Fable - Detroit Tech Watch Book Club
Feel free to forward the invite.
Of course the book is free and available online here: How To Design Programs
Please let others know about this! The more folks reading and discussing the book the more we can all learn!
If you have questions, post them here. If you find problems, use the email address.
[[ Time and again, people ask about a paper copy because it’s their preferred medium. MIT P published the book, and I am sure Amazon and friends still sell it. ]]
I'm waiting on the book to arrive from the library! I had said to myself, geez, maybe I'll post in the forum when it arrives to see if anyone wants to read it together. Would love a bit of co-learning, great stuff!
Yes please join us! We won’t be formally starting till January 6!
Is this smartphone only? I can't seem to access it from the web?
I don’t know for sure; I will try to check it tomorrow and let you know what I find out!
Yeah it feels like they steer people to the mobile app. There doesn’t seem to be full functionality via the web site!
Book arrived early! I usually get a little SMS message when an order gets in, but I hadn't gotten one, and was in the library unrelatedly, and saw the book on the shelf where the orders wait for you to get them. I nearly jumped with excitement - a Christmas miracle 
Looked at that Fable thing now a second time and felt similarly to the first time - what are we signing up for there? I'm not a "mobile" person at all, or a "making-accounts-everywhere" person. So maybe it's not for me. What does it provide, if you sign up?
Maybe I'll just operate on the forum here. We could use this thread for discussion as well, perhaps? Would that be appropriate, @spdegabrielle? Or maybe I should read solo, and just post specific threads when I've got a specific question.
In any case, having a physical book, plus the DrRacket editor, so that I can be totally offline, phone hidden away turned fully off in a desk drawer somewhere, it's the stuff of dreams. So hard to get distracted, so easy to fully focus!
Setting things up today, I learned that the "HelpDesk" gets pulled up in a browser page from locally installed docs even when offline. Glorious!
I am not trying to be snarky or nasty but I'm afraid my words will come across that way. So please don't take this as nastiness.
I don't care really but I will say that having a discussion in two places is trickier than simply having it in one. Conversations get a bit out of sync and not everyone will be willing to post the same message to a few places. So I'll post what I have on Fable and others who care to can join there. No one has to join on Fable; I just find it easier to discuss things when everyone's sort of agreed to have the discussions in a single place.
No worries at all, frank discussion is appreciated.
I'm afraid I haven't made my point clearly - I wasn't saying that I will in all scenarios refuse to join Fable, I was saying I cannot see what's on offer, or what it provides. When I asked:
I simply meant: could you explain from your experience with the service what exactly is being offered? The FAQ is very sparse, I see screenshots that look a bit glossy and modern, but I genuinely can't see what exactly I would be signing up to. I just had a third click around there to see if there's some clear explanation I'm missing, but I can't see one. Plus, all the vague marketing-speak doesn't inspire huge confidence.
It was my only question, it wasn't addressed in your initial post, it wasn't addressed here after I asked you explicitly, and I can't make it out on the Fable website. Presumably, it's some sort of chat group? With other capabilities of some kind?
Who is everyone?
Well anyway, I don't want to be badgering you, seeing your communications here I think I'll go it alone in any case and make threads for specific questions. Best of luck with the endeavour!
Oh ok. Yes I can see where I've missed what you were getting at!
The interface seems to be best in terms of what one sees when one joins a book club. Even then, yes, the mobile interface is a far better way to interact with the app than the web interface.
Within the interface each portion of the book (including the preface in the case of HtDP) has a way to indicate that you've read it and a place to comment on that section of the book.
The club moderator can set up "milestones" to indicate what we'd all like to have read by a given date. I've set milestones for the book but given that they were autogenerated by Fable and the fact that they seem extremely ambitious I will likely modify them after the seven folks who've joined the book club (the "everyone" I was referring to) have had a chance to get started.
I may be wrong but I think it also has some sort of zoom like functionality to allow for discussion of the book "face to face."
I hope that clears it up a bit. Honestly this is my first time using Fable to run a book club and if it works then fine but if it doesn't I have no issue with other techniques to run things.
Can I suggest announcing on relevant channels
#lisp ,#scheme & #racket on libera.chat IRCS.
Thanks!
I knew of some of those channels but not all of them! Thanks for letting me know about them!
I just realised this starts today!
You have till Jan 9 to read to the end of 1.7 Predicates: Know Thy Data
and till Jan 12 to get to the end of 5 Adding Structure
Good luck.
I believe I am going to change those milestones 